


The Art of Sharing a Flat

by hellodarlingsunshine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 05:41:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5654506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellodarlingsunshine/pseuds/hellodarlingsunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus insists that they find a third roommate for their flat, but Sirius doesn't want to live within anyone besides his Moony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Sharing a Flat

**Author's Note:**

> long time lurker, first time poster. unbetaed, so sorry in advance for any grammatical mistakes. Or plot mistakes. Or mistakes in general.

“Another roommate, eh?” Lily looked bemused, hoisting Harry higher up on her hip. She’d become a master of doing things with the baby in her arms, since the day James had shouted through the mirror at Sirius, “He’s here! It’s a boy! He’s a boy!” with frantic joy in his eyes, almost a year ago. Currently, she was sorting out tea one-handedly, while Sirius sulked at the counter beside her.

  
“It’s absurd, Lily. I’ve told him time and time again that the money doesn’t matter. I’m happy to pay both halves of our rent, so long as I never have to share a flat with Regulus again.” It had been a terrible six months, with all sorts of Dark Objects popping up in their cupboards and Dark Creatures popping into their kitchen. Living with Moony was heaven compared to that.

  
“And when has Remus ever accepted you paying for his things?” The calm reason resonating in her voice only served to further agitate Sirius. No longer able to sit still, he sprung away from the counter and paced around the kitchen table, Harry’s bright eyes tracking his movements. It rankled him, in a way that it shouldn’t, when Lily tried to take Moony’s side. Not even his side really, she wasn’t defending him, she was...describing him, more like. And he didn’t need someone telling him about Moony. Surely there was nobody who knew Moony better than he did.

  
“But this is different. He’d be in charge of sorting out the money, there’s too many bloody bills in Muggle money and I can’t be bothered. So it’s not like he’s doing nothing -- he’s helping me out.”

  
Lily hid her mouth behind the tea mug, but it didn’t quite hide the quirk of her lips. She’d told Sirius before -- rather, she’d told James who had then told Sirius -- that while Sirius insisted he eschewed Muggle money on the principle that it just wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as Galleons and Sickles, her theory was that he actually found Muggle money to be too complicated and hated looking like a fool fumbling for the right change. Sirius had protested -- he is Sirius Black, he never looks like a fool -- but there may have been a sting of truth behind her theory.

“Shut up,” he told her instead, though she had said nothing. “I could have figured it out if I wanted, but it’s easier to just have Moony --”

  
“See? That’s why he’s fighting you on this,” Lily interrupted. “It’s not a fair trade and you know it. He knows it. Hell, even Harry knows it, don’t you, darling?” She cooed for a moment at the dark-haired replica of James in her arms. Harry gave a gummy smile back and Sirius’ heart momentarily melted. Until she continued, “So why don’t you just let him have his way? A third roommate could be fun. God knows you need to increase your social circle…”

  
“My social circle is fine, thank you.” Sirius’ tea was sitting next to Lily, across the room, and he gave it a longing glance before accepting that this was a conversation better had with his back to the door. Quick getaways were needed when she got into mothering mode.

  
“You have James, but he’s busy with work and Harry, so it’s not like it was at school. And Peter, well, you spend more time making fun of Peter than you actually spend time with Peter. Then there’s Remus. And me,” she amended, uncertainly. In their seventh year at Hogwarts, they’d declared a truce in their war for James’ affections, but Sirius would freely admit he had been a twat to her before that. But in the time since, a friendship had emerged, because it’s impossible for two people to love the same person so fiercely and not begin to love each other too. Lily was James’ life now, and Harry as well, and Sirius would rather die than see them in any kind of pain. But that’s not the sort of declaration you just go around saying, and he fumbled over the words whenever Lily tentatively broached the subject. Someday he’d figure out a way to tell her how he felt, that the Potter family trio was all the family he had now, but in the meantime, he did his best to show it through tea-time visits and presents for his godson.

  
“That’s all I need,” Sirius shrugged.

  
“Who knows? Maybe your new roommate will be incredibly fit and have terrible taste in men and the two of you will fall in love. That’s what happens in all the muggle romantic comedies.”

  
Sirius rolled his eyes. “That’s what happens in all romantic comedies, period. Life is not like that, thank goodness. I much prefer things the way they are.” She heaved a disappointed sigh and placed her empty mug in the sink, then poured his out as well. Sirius took that as his cue to leave, so he gave Lily a peck on the cheek, ruffled Harry’s absurdly fluffy hair, and grabbed a pinch of Floo powder from the cookie jar next to the fireplace.

  
“See ya next week, Lils!”

  
“Say hi to Remus for me!” Her voice followed after him.

*

Remus wasn’t home yet, Sirius could tell with a glance at the coatrack. For a tattered pea coat that was quite possibly older than Remus himself, it took up a remarkable amount of room. Sirius was grateful for the chance to catch up on his work -- McGonagall had warned him about the beastly amounts of paperwork Auror training required, but he’d thought she was just trying to get him out of her office before something exploded, as things tended to do when he and James were around. Turns out, she’d been understating it, if anything. Six months in and he hadn’t so much as gotten to touch a wand, although going by the bruises and broken bones that Gideon and Fabian Prewett had been receiving since they started the physical training with Mad-Eye, he should count himself lucky for that. He fixed himself a sandwich, made an extra without mustard for Remus, and started working at the kitchen table, but this quickly devolved into him lying on the floor in their living room, propped up on his elbows, and levitating the sandwich near his head for easy access.

  
It wasn’t more than an hour or so before he heard the front door creak open -- Remus hated Apparating, it was the one test he’d almost failed, much to the rest of the Marauders’ delight -- and a soft voice stated, “You’re on the floor. Why’re you on the floor?”

  
Sirius rolled onto his back and shrugged, staring up at Remus, who looked much taller from this vantage point. He’d worn his glasses today, which meant the full moon was coming soon. Remus got quite trembly in the days leading up to it, and struggled with his contacts. Once he’d taken Sirius up on his offer, and tried to stay still while Sirius put them in, but it turned out that standing so close, with Moony up against the bathroom counter and his warm breath on Sirius’ neck as he tried not to blink made Sirius a bit trembly too. It was too much pressure trying not to accidentally blind Moony, he had told himself. Anyone would have been nervous, as eyeballs are weird things and were not made for touching.

  
“We do have a table, Sirius. Multiple tables, actually.”

  
“Yes, but,” Sirius sat up and gestured at the piles of books, parchments, and quills scattered about him, “There’s not enough room.”

  
Remus let out a long-suffering sigh, crouched down, producing several leather bookmarks from the satchel over his shoulder. “These are called bookmarks, Sirius. You put them in your books to mark the pages,” he spoke slowly, like Sirius was a child, but it didn’t hide the way his mouth twitched up in the corner, an almost smile.

  
“They’re my books, I can do what I want with them,” Sirius’ petulant tone only made it worse.

  
“You’re going to break the book’s spines if you leave them like that. And then you’ll be a book murderer. I’m not going to live with someone who kills books, Sirius. I have my own books to think of, you know.”

  
“So I suppose doing this isn’t good for them either?” Sirius asked innocently, as he folded down the corner of a page, which was his preferred method of saving his place.

  
Remus actually let out a pained whimper, averting his eyes from Sirius’ book sacrilege. “You’re a heathen, I hope you know.” Sirius waited until Remus was in the kitchen, before he begrudgingly used the bookmarks.

  
“The sandwich on the counter’s for you, Moony. Unless, of course, if it bothers you to eat something made by a heathen. In which case, I can just eat--”  
“Oh, shut up,” Remus said, clearly already chewing.

  
They had such a nice routine, Sirius thought sadly, moving to the armchair with his papers, because Remus liked to lie on the couch when he read in the evening, and Sirius was sat just close enough to poke his feet with a quill when he got bored. Sometimes they lit a fire, but they always had tea, and after the fifteenth time or so of Sirius interrupting his reading, Remus would give up, and talk with Sirius until one of them started to yawn. It felt nothing like evenings at Grimmauld Place, and felt everything like home. Why should it have to change?

*

It was the smell of the rashers sizzling in the pan that woke Sirius up, Remus was sure of it. Otherwise, he would never have heard the dull thuds and slamming drawers that accompanied his friend’s morning routine. Sure enough, it was only a moment or two before Sirius emerged, still wearing his pyjama pants, and a David Bowie shirt that Remus was fairly confident actually belonged to him.

  
“Did you get out that from my room?”

“This?” Sirius plucked at the shirt absently, his bed-messed hair hanging in his eyes. “Nah, it was in my basket from the last time I borrowed it.”

  
“You don’t even listen to Muggle music,” Remus chastised him softly, turning back to focus on his cooking. One year at Hogwarts, when Galleons were tight (although, really, when were they ever not?) Lily had given Remus Muggle cooking lessons for Christmas. She’d said that some day he’d find a girl he wanted to impress, and that cooking would help to woo her. He hadn’t bothered to correct her, he’d already found someone that he wanted to impress, and it wasn’t a girl at all. Instead, he’d discovered that there was something oddly calming in doing things the Muggle way, and doing it well required a surprising amount of dexterity and concentration, which Remus had in spades. It didn’t hurt that Sirius insisted Muggle-made food tasted better.

  
“Smells good. What’re you cooking?” Sirius dropped his chin onto Remus’s shoulder, staring at the pans. “Can I help?”

  
“Fry-up, and no you cannot. You burn everything, Sirius. Literally,everything.”

  
“Speaking of which,” Remus’s shoulder abruptly felt lighter as Sirius straightened up, clasping a hand to Remus’ forehead like a worried mother, a small frown wrinkling his brow. “You’re burning up, Moony. Christ, the moon’s not for another four days, isn’t it a little early for you to be…” he gave a flailing gesture that was, Remus supposed, intended to encompass all of his werewolf tendencies. “combusting, already?”

  
“I’m not combusting, it’s just a fever. Probably not related to it at all.”

  
“Let me know if it gets worse, though, all right? Oh sod it, you’ll never actually fess up, will you? I’ll have Lily keep an eye on you,” Sirius narrowed his own with suspicion. Sirius was right, of course, there was something odd going on and Remus couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He’d checked and rechecked the moon charts he kept locked in an old Hogwarts trunk at the foot of his bed, and it was days before he should be feeling the effects of the moon. But here he was, shaky, warm, and fighting down that familiar itch under his skin, the feeling of the wolf waking up. It was bad enough when it came on schedule, but this wasn’t just annoying. It was concerning.

  
Which was exactly why Sirius Black did not need to know about it. For all of his bluster and devil-may-care attitude, no one could worry like Sirius did. He worried with a vengeance, over James, over Remus, and especially over Harry. It was nice, at times, to have someone worrying over Remus -- he’d always thought that once he left home, he’d be alone in the world, and the constant presence of his friends never ceased to surprise him -- but it also meant that if he wasn’t careful, Sirius would lock him in his room and fret over him until the full moon actually did come. And so he lied.

  
“It’s fine, I’m fine, and this breakfast will be fine if you’ll just go sit down so I can finish it.” Sirius lasted exactly thirty seconds, fidgeting with the salt and pepper shakers at the kitchen table, before he was on his feet again. Remus could hear him pacing the room. Even after multiple experiments, the Marauders had never been able to figure out whether Remus’ excellent sense of smell was a result of being a werewolf, or just being a Remus. If he had to guess, it was probably a wolf thing, having been bitten so young, it sometimes seemed like it had always been this way. But there had never been anyone to ask. Regardless, he could find any of his friends in a crowded room, just by following their scent. The citrusleathersmoke smell of Sirius reached him in waves as the man puttered around the tiny kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards restlessly, until Remus had had enough of the oppressive silence, and whirled around, spatula in hand to say, “Alright, out with it. What’s the matter?”

  
Sirius winced, hand still half-in a tin of biscuits, and set them down gently on the table, head cowed as he mumbled, “Nothing. Wasn’t doing anything.” He shifted his weight from side to side, looking, for all the world, like a scolded puppy.

  
“Don’t give me that,” Remus sighed, shutting off the stove and facing his friend once more. “You’re clearly bursting to say something, and I can tell already that I won’t like it.”

  
“You won’t like it,” Sirius agreed, frowning. “It’s just -- I talked to Lily about us getting another roommate and she thinks it’s a great idea, because she’s Lily and clearly deranged, as evidenced by the fact that she married James, but I don’t. I don’t want another person here, with us, getting in the way and being nosy --”

  
“Noisy?”

  
“No, nosy, but also noisy too, now that you mention it, and they’ll have all sorts of opinions and bad habits and furniture.”

  
“Sirius, you have opinions and habits and...furniture,” Remus pointed out.

  
“Yes, but you like my furniture.”

  
Remus glanced pointedly at the olive-green monstrosity of an armchair sitting in the furthest corner of their kitchen.

  
“Debatable.”

  
“Hush, Moony. You know what I mean. I don’t mind paying more for the rent -- I’d be willing to pay it all if it meant it would just be the two of us.”

  
So, they were doing this, then. Remus would have rather waited until after breakfast, as bacon and potatoes and anything fried, really, tended to put Sirius in a more agreeable mood. He pulled two plates out of one of the cupboards Sirius had left open -- speaking of bad habits -- and began to load them up with food.

“That’s not what I want, though. Doesn’t that matter?”

  
Sirius had the gall to look hurt at that, even as he raised a forkful to his mouth. “Of course it matters, you git. But this isn’t what you really want, it isn’t. You’re just being proud and stupid and it’s…stupid.”

  
While some people were born with the ability to speak to snakes or catch a Snitch, Sirius had been born with the ability to infuriate everyone he spoke to, in a matter of sentences. Remus clenched his fork and reminded himself that had already known this fact (and sometimes, even found it endearing) when he had agreed to live with Sirius after Hogwarts.

  
“Very eloquent.”

  
Sirius smirked as though he were winning.

  
“But don’t try to pretend that you know what I want. Maybe I’m being proud but you’re being stubborn and selfish, Sirius.” This was one of Sirius’ triggers, Remus knew, and it came dangerously close to implying he was behaving like his mother. It could go either way -- explosive shouting or defeated silence -- and the fact that Sirius was already stabbing his potatoes like they’d done something wrong. Nevertheless, Remus continued, “I don’t want you paying for me, I don’t like owing people for things, especially when there’s no bloody reason for it. We’re getting another roommate, or I’ll be finding a new flat.”

  
Sirius stared at him, clearly horrified.

  
“You can’t mean that...right? You wouldn’t. You’re here,” Sirius lips were pressed into a thin line, “and I wouldn’t -- I can’t -- please, don’t move out.” His dark eyes sparkled with something that looked suspiciously like tears, but he blinked too soon for Remus to tell.

  
The pause stretched for what seemed like an eternity, as Remus studied the man in front of him. Sirius was hunched over his plate -- they’d teased him at school that he ate more like a wolf than the wolf did -- but poor posture didn’t disguise the graceful brush of his black hair against his forehead, or the slight stubble below strong cheekbones, and the stretch of his shirt -- Remus’s shirt -- across shoulders that had miraculously broadened overnight, their sixth year, or so it had seemed. Nothing, even the thoughtless words that fell from his mouth (because, god, what a mouth it was), even the fact that after nine years of friendship, Sirius still didn’t know his friend well enough to realize that he absolutely meant what he had said, was enough to distract from the fact that Remus was terribly in love with his best friend. Maybe, he hoped, someone else living with them would be enough of a distraction, that it wouldn’t be so painful anymore. Dilute the scent, and all that.

  
“Yes, I mean it. I don’t want to move, but this is just, it’s just one of my principles. It’s me, so if you really want me to stay, it needs to be on completely equal terms.”

  
Sirius’ jaw was tight, as he jerked his head in the tiniest of nods.

  
“Fine. But only if you stay.”

  
“I’ll stay.”


End file.
